


Midnight

by Corvid_Knight



Series: Demonstuck [53]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Demonstuck, Gen, Kidnapping, davepeta is machnicating, everything's fine nothing to see here, is that a word, no one knows sign language and Jr is being v v patient, they're a good kid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 00:32:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19734766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corvid_Knight/pseuds/Corvid_Knight
Summary: The task is simple: kidnap one of the Piexes family's wards and use her as a bargaining chip. Is it a good plan? No. Does the Midnight Crew fuck it up? Yeah. Is Davepeta the reason everything's going to turn out fine? Probably, but Jr's a big part of it too.





	Midnight

Even before Clubs pulls the hood off the mark's head, you're fairly sure he and Hearts got the wrong kid. Be honest with yourself here, for some fraction of a second—who the hell ever heard of a Piexes in a kitty-cat shirt with the sleeves cut or torn off to turn it into a tanktop, a Piexes in scuffed-up tennis shoes with mismatched laces, a Piexes who'd sit still and obedient even for two grown men? Sure, your mark's from an offshoot of the witches' family tree, but that doesn't alter nature at all. 

"Ah, shit." Hearts looks at you like you sprouted antlers instead of just muttering an obscenity, but he doesn't move to stop you as you lean over into the backseat and get ahold of the black hood. Even though you don't really expect the luscious midnight tresses of those god damned sirens, you're careful. 

You don't need to be, because the kid under the hood has short and nearly white hair, puffed out of any specific style that might've been imposed on it by the couple minutes of confinement it took your two dumbass partners to snatch 'n grab. Wide eyes the color of a ripped-open pomegranete blink up at you, once, twice, three times, and you resign yourself to the outraged screech of a confused ten-year-old. 

The kid giggles. Over his head, Clubs and Hearts exchange a bewildered look. You have to restrain the urge to reach back and slam their heads together like the stooges they are. (The fact that performing that specific act would symbolically doom you to complete the trio does help sublime that compulsion.) 

You should probably get moving before whoever owns the kid shows up to send you to some form of hell. Risking another trip down there would mean you'd have to come up with something to pay your way back with, and this time you don't have a name to trade away. 

"That ain't the right kid, jackasses," you point out (somewhat unecessarily, you think, but then again that's the kind of day it's shaping up to be) as you step just a little more on the gas. Technically, the car never stopped at all, not for the second that it took for Clubs and Hearts to exit nor for the process of them reentering with the mark who _isn't_ the mark, but now you bring it up from barely a crawl to somewhere close to what everyone else considers the speed limit to be. "Just because you smell magic—" 

"I smelled _Piexes,_ " Clubs mumbles sulkily. In the rearview mirror, you see the towheaded kid reach up to pat at your partner's shoulder in a way that comes across as comforting. Clubs either doesn't notice the gesture or doesn't appreciate it. 

"Yeah, well, does he _look_ like a Piexes to you?" 

"We weren't even hunting a Piexes," Hearts feels the need to point out, like he hasn't brought this up roughly five thousand times in the course of planning today's excursion. "The whole point was that—" 

"Tethis is younger, less dangerous, less valuable, less likely to get us all killed and leave Diamonds back at the base to bargain us alive again, yeah, yeah, we _know._ " Clubs flips a dismissive hand. "So we got the wrong kid. We drop him off in front of the mansion and—" 

The object of discussion tugs at Clubs's sleeve and shakes his head. Clubs blinks down at him. You should probably be watching the road instead of the rearview mirror, but selling your name to something not-quite-human tends to do wonders for your ability to multitask. "He doesn't seem to like that idea, Clubs." 

Again, the kid shakes his head, this time with an eye-roll at you. Wonder what kind of demon he's got climbing around his family tree; eyes that bright mean something interesting, that's for sure. Wonder if he can talk. Probably not, because the next thing he does is wiggle around between Clubs and Hearts, dipping one hand into the pocket of his cutoff shorts (you tense, Hearts tenses, Clubs actually reaches for the gun that you _told_ him to take out of his pocket) and comes up with a marker. 

No paper, though. Instead of asking for some, the kid wiggles some more, getting up on his knees and facing backward to scribble on the back window. You have no idea why the hell the two grown men in the backseat with him don't do something about that. 

What he writes, he writes twice, one repetition above the other. First one's written normally, second's reversed so it'll show up properly in the rearview mirror you're still watching him through. Kid's smart—the kind of smart that's another tipoff he's not human. 

You read the all-caps writing on the window while the braindead half of your circle is still staring at the towheaded kid. Then you read it again, out loud, since they don't seem too likely to do it themselves. "'Jr. Not a he.' You don't look too much like a she to me, but okay." 

For that remark, you receive another eye-roll. This one's delivered over Jr's shoulder, as they wipe off what they've already written and scribble something else down. 

Wonder of wonders, Clubs reads it out while you're still converting backwards to forwards. "'They, dumbass.' Watch it, kid." 

"Leave 'em be." Hearts comes to the defense before you can. Another miracle. "Piexes, Jr? Tethis, Jr?" 

That question isn't answered with words or with more writing. Instead, Jr licks one finger and carefully wipes away just the pronoun written on the window. Then they underline _DUMBASS_. Twice. 

You think you like this kid.

* * *

Another hint that Jr's not human comes when you drive over the subtly discolored line of pavement that marks the edge of your crew's territory. (It looks almost like a strip of burned rubber across the road. Burned rubber wouldn't continue into the grass as a thin line of bare ground running off both sides of the road.) You feel the change in the air; in the rearview mirror you see Hearts and Clubs twitch as the sense of coming home hits them. 

The kid, though? They go from being draped across Heart's lap to doodle on the window to sitting bolt upright with their eyes wide and startled in about half a second flat. Not just smart, but aware of their surroundings. 

"You're fine, kid. It's—" Huh. Maybe you shouldn't own up to having an ferrywoman-drawn metaphysical landing pad around your base of operations just yet. "—just a warding circle." 

From the look they shoot you, Jr isn't buying it. The skepticism isn't enough to get them to open their mouth and call you on your bullshit, though.

* * *

Clubs picks up the hood when you put the car in park. Hearts makes him put it down. You think that's a fair decision; hell, there's three of you and this is your turf, it's not like you can't catch the kid if they run. They don't run. What they _do_ decide to do is slide out of the door that Hearts holds open for them, bypass Clubs entirely, and dart over to grab your hand. 

Well, if you were wondering if you had kids in your original life, your curiousity has been answered. No one who's been around a kid in his life would be this poleaxed to have one latch on to him. 

Eh. It means it's easy to get them inside, anyway. Gives you something to focus on other than the _highly_ disapproving look that Diamonds gives you when he sees that you've got a towhead instead of a brunette. 

"Spades—" 

"Don't even start." Jr does not want to let go of your hand. They stick their tongue out at you as you start gingerly peeling their fingers off of yourself. "You knew sign language at one point, didn't you?" 

"Yeah, but what does that have to do with your—" 

"Kid's mute, numbskull. Hey. Jr." When they cock their head at you, you ask, "You know ASL?" 

They grin and let go of your hand, presumably to sign an affirmative answer at you. You, however, do _not_ know any but the most obvious signs, and have to give Diamonds a look. 

He gives it right back, with the addition of sharp edges. You can't really blame him. But once the glare is delivered, he does hunker down on the floor and turn his attention to Jr's hands, brow furrowing as he tries to make sense of the rapidfire signs. "Uh—he says—" 

"They." 

"What?" 

"Hey, it's what the kid said was right, don't look at me." 

Diamonds does look at you, just long enough for you to see he's rolling his eyes. You notice that Jr pauses their attempts at communication to let him do that. As soon as he looks down, though, those little hands are moving again. 

Shit. You can tell by the look on Diamonds's face that he's halfway to being lost already. Well, it was worth a try—

"They say their...kid, I don't know that sign—" Diamonds frowns as Jr huffs and spells something out, a touch slower than they've been signing. "S-I-B-L-I—sibling? Their sibling sent 'em here. Don't know that sign either—" 

"I thought you knew sign language." 

"Twenty years ago I _kind_ of knew sign language, Spades. What this kid's using ain't even kind of the same." Diamonds looks up at you, then back down as Jr tugs at his sleeve. "He—" 

" _They,_ numbskull." 

"Screw you. _They_ say somebody glamoured them so's—oh, that's clever, show me how to do Clubs and Hearts again—" 

"Diamonds, focus." 

This time, he doesn't even look up as he flips you off. "Someone—looks like the sign for the sibling, 'cept not quite—glamoured them to look like Tethis. Jesus, Spades, are you telling me she was _there_ and you—" 

"Don't bite my head off. I was the driver, remember?" 

"I told you that was a bad plan." 

It really was. You resist the urge to agree with him. "Plan was fine. Just didn't take Jr into account." 

"No shit. Who're they the junior version of, anyway?" 

You look at Jr. Jr shrugs and signs something. Since you still don't know sign language, you look at Diamonds and see that, like all the other proper names the kid's used so far, he doesn't know that one either. "Mind spelling that out for my moron of a partner?" 

Jr wrinkles their nose up and signs something that doesn't look like letters, pauses, and fires off six of what you're guessing _are_ letters. Diamonds sighs, and points out, "Kid, 'big bro' isn't much help." 

"What'd they say before they said that?" 

"That you need to stop being a dick." 

"Too late for that." 

"By about sixty years—you were born a dick. Spades?" 

"Yeah." You know what he's going to ask, but you're not going to supply information. The fact that you don't really have any information makes your stance on that even more firm. 

"What the hell are we going to do with them?" 

"...you round up Clubs 'n Hearts. I'll take them down to the basement."

* * *

Jr is disturbingly calm about being taken into a basement. You don't know how any normal kid could just stand there in a technically-underground room lit partially by candles that light themselves as the two of you come down the stairs, partially by a lamp that Hearts bought from the Ikea website, with bare concrete flooring that's had occult symbols daubed on the floor in eight colors of paint ranging from neon orange to deep purple.

All right, so it's not that imposing. Jr lets go of your hand as you go over to Hearts's Swedish lamp; after you switch it on you turn to watch the kid pick their way through the concentric rings of the summoning circle painted on the floor. They don't step on any of the lines on their way to the center. Impressive, given how closely knit some of the pattern is. 

"You trying to decide if it gets your stamp of approval, kid?" 

They give you a bright grin and a thumb's-up. No accounting for taste, you guess. Either that, or they're used to more drab magical diagrams. Blood does tend to dry to an uninteresting brown, after all...then again, only the most hardass demon clans still stick stubbornly enough to the old ways to daub arcane symbols in the blood of vanquished foes. Paint's easier, less likely to get you arrested, doesn't smell as much...

While you're mulling over the benefits of modern materials, the other three members of your crew make your way down the stairs to stand beside you, well clear of the chartruse edge of the circle. Hearts remembers to shut the door at the top, wonder of wonders. Another minute and you'd call Jr back out of the circle, but they don't make you do that; picking their way back from the center, they still don't step on anything important to the magic. 

Not that it'd matter if they did. The paint's not just dry but decades-set; somehow, even with everything that happens, the Midnight Crew comes back to their territory. Geography is the one thing the four of you keep. 

Jr steps up next to you, squeezing into the small space between your left side and Diamonds's right, and looks up at you. 

Now, normally the four of you take turns seeing who's going to call the Peregrine. If none out of all of you can remember who went last (which happens more often than you might think; in the natural course of things, summoning her is damn near the last thing any of you want to do) you draw lots. Flip a coin—it only takes two flips to sort out four people, and it'd take only one this time since the blame for this whole shebang is _clearly_ laid at the feet of Clubs and Hearts—but nah. This is a special occasion, and it's always been your style to take the wheel in times like these. 

"Don't touch anything." Probably an unecessary warning, but kids are always unpredictable, and you make sure that Jr nods at you before you step forward. One step, two, and then the toes of your boots are nearly brushing the outermost circle; then it's just a matter of dipping a hand into the pocket that you extended when you bought this shirt, coming up with your knife, hunkering down and oh-so-carefully running the tip of your left ring finger along the blade. 

The edge is keen, and you've done this before. There's no pain from the hairline of red that you open up, not until you press your ring finger against the pad of your thumb and force out a drop of blood to fall directly onto the curved green line in front of you. 

Once it falls, the line isn't really green anymore. The tiny patch of dry paint where your blood drips is, briefly, splattered red; then that spot flares white, spreading out around the rest of that circle. It takes barely a second for the whiteness to flare into the whole of the design, jumping from symbol to symbol until the floor's laced with bright, clean white. 

Then the summoning circle is just mismatched paint again, and the only white thing in the room is the woman standing in the middle of it, about to rain down holy hell on your poor head. 

Hoo boy. 

You have time to get your knife safely in your pocket and out of the way before Peregrine takes two long strides to the edge of the summoning circle, sticks one arm out past the edge—surprising Jr; out of the corner of your eye you see their head cock to one side as they consider the fact that the circle only calls, doesn't bind—and seizes the collar of your shirt. This too you've done before; you know to get your legs up underneath you before she yanks. 

It still hurts like hell when she does. That's fine—pain is temporary, and she's not cutting off the air supply necessary for talking this out. "Alright, it ain't how it looks—" 

"I am going to _eviscerate_ you." 

"—and this time I mean it." 

"I'm going to use your gallbladder as payment to carry your sorry carcass back to the land of the living." 

"Right, because I still have one of those." You're fairly sure that the gallbladder was one of the original casualites of your life. It wasn't even an eldritch bargain that you lost it in; you vaguely remember losing that in a hospital. Or maybe you're thinking of your appendix. "Put me down." 

"No." Dark eyes flash an inch from yours. _Pretty_ dark eyes, made even more so by how she frames them, a scarf coiled around her head, seductive patterned fabric mimicking the serpent in Eden. (Hey, Spades? Yeah, what the fuck.) "You can pay your fare—" 

"Put me down and _listen_ , alright?" This is going a lot better than usual. Usually someone would have been stabbed by this point. Probably her, maybe you. "This ain't about me, for once." 

" _That_ is something I do not believe." 

"Well, listen, and if you decide it's my fault then you can poke around 'n see if I do have a gallbladder, instead of taking those two idiots'." Both of Peregrine's hands are occupied with dangling you a good two inches off the ground purely by her grip on your shirt. This leaves your hands free to gesture behind you, at (hopefully) Hearts and Clubs. Diamonds is totally blameless here, after all. 

From the way her eyes widen as she looks over your shoulder, your crew ain't what she's noticing. "Slick." 

"Yeah? You planning on dropping me?" It's a reminder, one she needs. It's also what gets her to let go. You wish she would have lowered you a little first, because although you manage to come down on your feet and stick the landing, it can't possibly look graceful. " _Hell_ , Peregrine—" 

"Slick," she says, patiently, like you're about three years younger than the kid you've somewhat inadvertantly kidnapped, the kid that she's stepping around you to examine, "what in the name of _fuck_ are you doing with a Strider?" 

"A _what_?" Ah, shit. 

"Technically," Clubs feels the need to point out, "that'd be a _who._ " 

" _Whom._ " 

At Diamonds's grammatical correction, the Strider in question giggles. 

You are _so_ screwed.

* * *

For whatever reason, Peregrine's much more fluent in sign language than Diamonds is. Maybe it's something that comes along with her powers, a badge of office, one tick on the _pro_ side of some metaphorical or metaphysical ledger. (You're pretty sure that her involvement with you and your crew is firmly and constantly on the _con._ )

The main reason that you're sure that the ability to talk to the kid in the language they picked is a positive for Peregrine is that in doing so, she's annoying the hell out of you. You fully understand that your irritation is completely unfair—it's not _her_ fault that you're reduced to sitting on the floor and watching the two of them sign back and forth at each other, understanding exactly none of it—but that doesn't really make a dent in it. For all you know, she's getting permission from them to drop you in hell. 

_Back_ in hell. _Again._

Diamonds is sitting right next to you, but he's no help—you're pretty sure that Jr was going slow for him before, either because they're a polite kid or because they didn't want to go back to writing. There's none of that courtesy now, though—every couple minutes you see hope light up your partner's eyes as he catches a sign or two that he can grab the meaning of, but it never lasts long. By the time the kid hops up to their feet to start digging in a pocket, you think Diamonds has finally given up on translating. 

You gave up about two minutes in, so you'd say that it's about time. 

From the blank look on your nemesis and saviour's face, you'd guess that the kid didn't explain themself before they decided that they needed something out of that pocket. You know the marker's in there somewhere; maybe they've come to another word that has a fiddly translation into sign language, they're planning on writing it down? 

But no. What Jr comes up with is much smaller, small enough to be completely hidden in a kid's clenched fist. Which it is, until they hold out their hand and carefully unfold their fingers, revealing...

A feather. A down feather, bigger than what you'd expect from a chicken or turkey, a feather the delicate orange of fresh-churned satsuma ice cream. Shit, that's an old memory. You don't think you know what that memory used to connect to. 

Peregrine stares at the feather balanced on Jr's palm for close to a minute. Then—wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles—she smiles. 

"Damn." You hear yourself breath the single word out. Around you, the other three members of your crew makes soft sounds identical in meaning, if not content. She doesn't smile around you. Not like that. Not for real. 

"Shut your mouth before a fly lands there," Peregrine tells you without taking her eyes off that feather. It's both a reassuring return to business as usual and enough of a tone change to give you mental whiplash. While you're recovering from that, she rises to her feet in a perfectly graceful motion and reaches out to take the feather from the kid. 

At least, that's what you assume she's doing. And as usual, _assume_ makes an ass out of _u_ and _me_ ; Peregrine closes her hand around Jr's smaller one, and before you can open your mouth to ask what the hell she thinks she's doing, she's already done it. 

They're gone. Both of them.

* * *

It's not entirely accurate to say that no one loses their cool. Hell, it'd be markedly more accurate to say that _all_ of your crew loses it—in under ten seconds, all four of you are on your feet, weapons in hand (well, other than Diamonds, who apparently didn't get completely dressed this morning since he comes up empty when reaching for a blade or a gun) and ready for whatever avenging force Peregrine ferries back from wherever she's returned Jr to. 

However, all of this is entirely unecessary, because fifteen seconds later the circle flares under your feet and Peregrine materializes in the center. With the kid right beside her, even. Several things have changed in the quarter of a minute the two of them were gone. 

One. Peregrine has wide, white angel's wings now. You don't think it's fair that she gets those, since she's anything but an angel. 

Two. Jr's grin is accessorized by a streak of fresh blood running from their forehead all the way down onto their shirt. Not good. 

Three. Jr has...something, in their hand. Given a minute, you could probably identify what, but rather than give you that minute Jr giggles (unsettling, what with the current state of their face) and twists the hand that Peregrine's holding out of her grip, running over to you and holding out the unidentified object to you. 

It has blood on it. From the punch-drunk way Clubs is shaking his head, you suspect that it is not, in fact, Jr's blood. Somewhat better, but... "Kid, what the hell did she do to you?" 

"All I did was watch them stab a dreamraptor with a pocketknife." 

...well, it's good to know they're armed. Contemplating the fact that Peregrine apparently took them to the plane of existance that you visit only in the event of your own untimely demise, less good. "Why the hell—" 

"Spades!" Okay, so the kid can, in fact, talk. The surprise of it startles you into looking down at them, which reminds you that they've brought you back a gift. 

"Alright, alright. Hand it over." (Jr's eye-roll very plainly says _that's what I've been trying to do._ ) "...huh." 

As far as you can tell, it's a rock, about the size of an hen's egg. Too round to be an egg, though, and too heavy. When you run your finger over it, enough blood wipes off that you can tell that the surface is mottled shades of green and very faintly pitted. 

Jr taps your hand, then signs something at you when you look up. 

"They say it's to make up for kidnapping them," Diamonds volunteers before you can ask. (You have no clue what that's supposed to mean.) "Uh...and it's time to go home." 

"I'm not too sure about that, Diamonds—" 

Peregrine laughs, effectively shutting you up out of sheer shock. She's smiling that non-deadly smile again, watching you fumble around with the kid's rock. "Just do it. What have you got to lose? Your lives? You have two paid ferries back apiece, thanks to them." 

Well, shit. Can't argue with that, even if you're going to be wondering what the hell that feather was for the foreseeable future.

* * *

Jr's had a phone in one of those bottomless pockets the whole time. Of course they have. Instead of directing you to the correct dropoff point by pointing, they do something to the phone and hand it off to Clubs, then hop into the back of the car to start climbing over Hearts like he's their own personal jungle gym. 

Hearts is fine with it. You make the executive decision to keep Clubs in the front seat with you; you're fairly sure he's had about as much juvenile contact as he can stand for one day. Also, you know for a fact that he considers firearms to be his primary weapon, and thus keeps them in the most accesible places. Jr with a gun in a moving car is the last thing you need—the possibility of them shooting you or one of your crew aside, whichever Strider they belong to probably wouldn't be too keen on the kid having a firearm. 

Ha. Like there'll just be _one_ Strider out for your blood. Everything not-quite-human knows that it doesn't matter how the blood ties run—if you hurt any Strider, you're fucked. As far as you can tell, they were one of the first to realize that in this line of business, family may be a liability...but it's also a strength. The kid in the backseat's probably been surrounded by adults who wouldn't hesitate to kill for them since birth—of course they're sure they'll come back home safe and sound. 

You're not so sure that _you_ will...but then again, Jr had a phone the whole damn time. The circle around your crew's territory guards from magical tracking, not the mundane flavour, and if the Striders don't have either a technomancer or a decent tech geek, you'll eat your hat. They weren't tracked, or at least rescue wasn't sent, and you're sure there's a reason for that. Maybe something to do with the siblings who made sure that Clubs and Hearts would take them, instead of the kid they meant to grab...

Fuck. Tethis. The Piexes clan. You may have forgotten that they're still a threat to you. 

Well, can't deal with that now. Now, you need to return Jr, presumbably to the house their phone's directed you to. 

God damn but you're never going to get used to this kind of architectural monstrosity. You're fairly sure that there wasn't anything this size when _you_ were a boy—or if there was, they were few and far between, not scattered willy-nilly across what should be rights be empty pasture. You guess the fact that this...this mansion, you're not calling it a house again—it's got an almost normal amount of clear space around it, even if it does look like it's been uprooted from some more appropriate venue and plopped down here in the midst of the uncounted, near-identical buildings that makes up modern suburbia. 

In the backseat, Jr clears their throat and taps the back window meaningfully. When you look, you see that they've written _YOU HAVE TO COME IN WITH ME_ there. 

"Not so sure that's a good idea, kid." 

They roll their eyes and climb over Diamonds, tugging at the handle until it gives and sliding out of the car. For a moment you think they're going to agree with your view—that a simple dropoff is far more safe and reasonable than your going up to the door—but no. Jr slams the back door shut again, stomps over to the driver's side, yanks your door open, and stands there with their arms crossed and an expression that says _don't you dare test me_ far more eloquently than words ever could.

You've faced down demons and hellhounds, witches and angels and everything else between here and hell. All that experience means that you know when you're beat. 

"Fine."

* * *

Kid has you carry them to the door—they dig in their heels when you try to take their hand and lead them, won't walk in front of you, won't walk at all. Not that carrying them is much of a hardship—once you figure out that that's the right road to go down and lean down, Jr climbs up on your back and loops their arms around your neck like they do this shit all the time. Hell, maybe they do; pickaback rides seems just the right level of normal for this god damn family. 

This still leaves both your hands free and one of your knives easily accessible. You double check to be sure that you have at least the illusion of being able to fight your way out if you need to, then ring the doorbell. 

The man who opens the door is damn near two feet taller than you and built like he's used to wrestling bears, dark-skinned and darker-haired. He's quite obviously not a Strider, and even more obviously (to you, at least) not human. 

Looking up at him, you get hit by another old memory. This one's just barely forward of the wall of amnesia that was the price for one of your rides back to the land of the living; since the contents of the memory itself include the knowlege that you once helped get this man run out of New Orleans, you sort of wish it was on the other side. 

Since he's looking at you with more confusion than anger, you think you're going to just play dumb. "Hello there. Think I got something that belongs to you." 

"...that you do. D? You can get off the phone now, darling." The second half of that's directed somewhere deeper in the house, as the man steps back and gestures for you to come in. (You don't want to come in. You do it anyway.) "Jr's found a ride home." 

Well. Might as well come clean now. "Actually...we were kind of his ride out." 

"Oh, we know." The big guy smiles, warm and (surprisingly) not terrifying at all. "Davepeta's been explaining how they planned everything out to get you here for the past hour." While you're still processing that, he adds, "Jr, care to come present your argument for an alliance?" 

_What._

On one hand? That would solve any protection problems. On the other, though...why the _fuck_? 

Eh. You guess you might as well not question it until shit hits the fan, though. Makes more sense to follow the big guy into the other room and deal with any potential problems as they arise. 

If they do.

**Author's Note:**

> hey this was supposed to be like 2k, what the fuck happened


End file.
